Forming a Nation

Firstly, I must apologize to our readers and sponsors for the delay in blog postings. Africa has not been kind to us, but we have been having one hell of an adventure!

The Team, both cast and crew has fractured along with losing yet another vehicle. The second Renault freshly painted in Dakhla, Morocco promptly exploded in Mauritania's Sahara heat. The issue, NO oil in the engine, which despite being one of UK-J's primary concerns was overlooked. This mishap costs us both time and the inability to continue with in full with 12 people. 

First to go were Javier (to Las Vegas),Walter (to Rome) and Noah (to only God knows where) in Bamako. It simply put was both not the right project for the first and monetary issues with the second and third. Regardless, we pushed on to Ouga where UK-J and Rob decided to stay put despite now having space in the vehicles. It was in their words not the trip they had signed up for. 

Berlin to Hof, Germany - Large cities are to overland expeditions what salt to a slug is, a long painful death. Berlin proved to be a time warp. 

It started off well enough. Everyone was up and ready downstairs eating breakfast by 8am. It was a schedule I was determined to keep. We had CNN coming to interview us at 10am giving us enough time for last minute preparations. We would pack while they were around and leave directly afterwards. That at least was the plan.

CNN showed up late, packing was delayed by interviews, leaving was delayed by the mandatory group shots, then by set up shots of leaving Berlin, followed by mass chaos trying to leave the city. Wrong autobahn, wrong exit, wrong side of town. In the three hours in which it took us to leave the city we ended up getting closer to Stockholm than Cape Town. I took a solace in that it wasn't the nearly eight hour debacle we had on Trabant Trek trying to flee Istanbul.